In a separate press release,B'Tselemexplicitly calls for Shalit's release:

Shalit is considered a hostage due to the circumstances of his abduction and the manner in which he is being held. International humanitarian law absolutely forbids the taking and holding of a person by force for the purpose of pressuring the adversary to comply with certain demands, while threatening to harm the person if the demands are not met. The taking of hostages is considered a war crime, for which all those involved bear personal criminal liability.

The Hamas leadership in Gaza bears an obligation to release Shalit immediately and unconditionally. Pending his release, his captors must treat him humanely and enable representatives of the ICRC to visit him.

Amnesty International is asking activists around the world to sign ourpetitionto Isma’il Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza, urging him to alleviate the suffering of Gilad Shalit and his family by immediately complying with its obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure that he is well treated, held in humane and dignified living conditions, and to allow him to communicate with his family, including through sending and receiving letters. Treating Gilad Shalit as a hostage is a flagrant violations of these obligations as Amnesty International stressed again today together with Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights NGOs.

This means that Amnesty is considering Shalit a prisoner of war, not a hostage, even though he was captured on the Israeli side of the Gaza fence and the entire operation was meant to capture hostages. Amnesty, amazingly, ignores these facts and merely calls for Hamas to treat him humanely.

Hamas authorities in Gaza should immediately end the cruel and inhuman treatment of Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit of Israel and allow him to communicate with his family and receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Human Rights Watch said today. June 25, 2010 is the fourth anniversary of his captivity.

Interestingly, they did call for his unconditional release immediatelyafter he was abducted. One can only wonder why they have dropped that demand in the years since.

B'Tselem is not blameless either.

In its press release about the joint declaration, takes pains to note that

[L]eading Israeli, Palestinian and International Human Rights organizations issued a joint statement demanding that those holding him must immediately end his inhumane and illegal treatment.

The organizations take a variety of positions on the issue. Some call for the immediate release of Shalit, while others support a prisoner swap. Some of the organizations have not made any statements until today. It is therefore particularly significant that the organizations have united around a joint message.

It is obvious that B'Tselem was the driving force behind this declaration. It is equally obvious that they tried really hard to get PCHR, the lone Palestinian Arab "human rights" group, to sign on, and they noted to AFPthat the declaration was also issued in Arabic.

What good is the Arabic translation of the message when even its sole Arab participant refuses to admit of its participation in its own website?

Thus we can see the incredible hypocrisy of the so-called "human rights" community. By refusing to demand Shalit's immediate and unconditional release, they are winking at Hamas' abduction of Israelis as hostages and encouraging more such raids. It is a travesty of everything they pretend to stand for.